PSD95 nanoclusters are postsynaptic building blocks in hippocampus circuits.
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The molecular features of synapses in the hippocampus underpin current models of learning and cognition. Although synapse ultra-structural diversity has been described in the canonical hippocampal circuitry, our knowledge of sub-synaptic organisation of synaptic molecules remains largely unknown. To address this, mice were engineered to express Post Synaptic Density 95 protein (PSD95) fused to either eGFP or mEos2 and imaged with two orthogonal super-resolution methods: gated stimulated emission depletion (g-STED) microscopy and photoactivated localisation microscopy (PALM). Large-scale analysis of ~100,000 synapses in 7 hippocampal sub-regions revealed they comprised discrete PSD95 nanoclusters that were spatially organised into single and multi-nanocluster PSDs. Synapses in different sub-regions, cell-types and locations along the dendritic tree of CA1 pyramidal neurons, showed diversity characterised by the number of nanoclusters per synapse. Multi-nanocluster synapses were frequently found in the CA3 and dentate gyrus sub-regions, corresponding to large thorny excrescence synapses. Although the structure of individual nanoclusters remained relatively conserved across all sub-regions, PSD95 packing into nanoclusters also varied between sub-regions determined from nanocluster fluorescence intensity. These data identify PSD95 nanoclusters as a basic structural unit, or building block, of excitatory synapses and their number characterizes synapse size and structural diversity.
Date Issued
2016-04-25
Date Acceptance
2016-04-01
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2016, 6
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
6
Copyright Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images
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unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license,
users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license,
unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license,
users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License URL
Identifier
PII: srep24626
Subjects
Animals
Disks Large Homolog 4 Protein
Electrical Synapses
Hippocampus
Mice
Mice, Knockout
Mice, Transgenic
Microscopy
Nanostructures
Protein Multimerization
Pyramidal Cells
Synaptic Transmission
Publication Status
Published online
Article Number
24626